NYTimes.com: Earthly dream is realized in the rain forest

An Arti­cle about my trav­el in THE NEW YORK TIMES! I nev­er thought that this would ever happen.

I should have told Bill that I want to write small books about the earth and it’s won­der (and he should hear me gig­gle now. It was noth­ing he got to hear 🙂

Out Here | Hoh Rain For­est, Wash.: Earth­ly Dream Is Real­ized in the Rain Forest 

By WILLIAM YARDLEY

The beau­ty here is not nec­es­sar­i­ly for every­one. Pound­ed by up to 170 inch­es of pre­cip­i­ta­tion each year, these grand old woods are wet­ter and gray­er and gloomi­er than most. Then again, not every sum­mer trav­el­er seeks sunshine.

“I want to under­stand Earth,” said Ruth Lot­ter, inter­rupt­ed while focus­ing her cam­era on one par­tic­u­lar­ly large and dex­ter­ous root sup­port­ing a big spruce tree.
.…

The mix of mys­ti­cal and triv­ial makes Ms. Lot­ter gig­gle, and she gig­gles well. She is 49 and Aus­tri­an and she likes the road. She fell in love with the Cal­i­for­nia Red­woods 15 years ago and is cer­tain she was trans­formed by a trip to study stro­ma­to­lites — ancient rock struc­tures that form in shal­low water — in Aus­tralia two years ago. She also had a remark­able moment near here this sum­mer. She was at Cape Flat­tery, the north­west­ern-most point in the con­tigu­ous Unit­ed States, and she had been wor­ry­ing about being sad. Then she decid­ed to stop worrying.

“I real­ized, ‘When I’m sad, be sad.’ And in that moment, I was happy.”

That got her gig­gling again.

It was rain­ing as she spoke. “It’s fun­ny that it’s rain­ing in the rain for­est,” she said.
.….

“The real thing is the real thing,” she said. “The more I under­stand Earth, the more I’m impressed.” WILLIAM YARDLEY

Copy­right 2011 The New York Times Company

Read the com­plete sto­ry in the New York Times!